Werth refers to "the archives", and especially to the 7-volume series on the
"Tragedy of the Soviet Countryside", as though their existence resolved
anything. It doesn't.

I have possessed a copy of this 7-volume work since it was published. It is a useful
compilation of primary documents. But documents, in themselves, prove nothing, and the
same is true of this collection.

Werth refers repeatedly to "the peasants." There was no such group. The
Russian (and Ukrainian, etc.) peasantry was sharply differentiated. For example, a huge
number had no land at all. Another large number had very small parcels of land. They were
called "batraki" (the landless) and "bedniaki" (the poor, either
landless or with very little land).

These peasants lost nothing by entering kolkhozes or sovkhozes. So the notion that
collectivization was a "war against the peasantry" is a smokescreen.

Collectivization did not cause the famine of 1932-33. That was caused by bad weather
conditions. Both Davies and Wheatcroft and Mark Tauger - the greatest scholars in the West
on this subject - agree here. Tauger believes that Davies and Wheatcroft exaggerate the
extent to which collectivization was one of several primary causes, and attributes the
famine primarily to bad weather.

Collectivization was a great success in that it stopped the periodic famines that had
plagued Russia (including Ukraine) every 3-4 years for a millennium. The famine of 1932-33
was the very last such famine - except for that of 1946-47. Wheatcroft has recently argued
that this was caused by catastrophic weather conditions and not by Soviet government
mismanagement.

Viewed in this light, collectivization in the USSR was one of the greatest feats of
social reform of the 20th century, alongside the industrialization of the USSR. It saved
millions of lives that would have been lost in future famines, which would have continued
to recur with regularity.

Of course, it also enabled industrialization and victory in WW2. That was no small
accomplishment. But even setting this aside, collectivization stopped the endless cycle of
famines, saving millions.

In addition, one must say this: those whom the famine of 1932-33 killed were from all
classes of the peasantry, the rich as well as the poor. In previous famines, rich peasants
had thrived, merchants had hoarded grain for higher prices, and only the poor had starved.
This, no doubt, is one of the reasons collectivization is so hated by Werth and
reactionaries generally: it removed the privilege of the rich and protected the poor.

Bukharin's plan could not possibly have permitted industrialization, and therefore
would have meant that the Nazis would have won the war. In addition, the capitalist
elements in the countryside were growing rapidly under the NEP. This would have continued.
Incidentally, Trotsky's plan was the same as Bukharin's here.

Werth refers to the "massive importation of American grain" in the '70s and
'80s. So what? Collectivization stopped periodic starvation, as it was supposed to do. See
the famous quotation from Stalin, as he talked to Winston Churchill.

In a famous passage in his memoir of World War II, Hinge of Fate, Churchill quoted
Stalin as saying:

"Ten million," he said, holding up his hands. "It was fearful. Four
years it lasted. It was absolutely necessary for Russia, if we were to avoid periodic
famines, to plough the land with tractors."

Russia and the Ukraine are far more northerly than is the USA. The point is that,
having industrialized, the USSR could pay for the importation of grain when necessary.
Collectivization allowed for industrialization and stopped the cycle of famines.

Werth is completely wrong about the "mass murders of 1937-1938." These were
not in the least a "prophylactic cleansing" - though this explanation is the one
being promoted now by anticommunists generally.

I've done a lot of research on this and intend to write a book on it in the future. For
now, see my article here:

Here I have included links to all the interrogations of Ezhov that have been made
public, along with translations of them into English, as well as to some other
interrogations. They are very enlightening.

In a recent volume of documents on 1937-1938 (in Russian) Khaustov, an inveterate
anticommunist, concedes that Stalin believed the reports Ezhov was sending him about bands
of rebels and oppositionists. Arch Getty showed a decade ago that Ezhov murdered far more
people than the Politburo ever contemplated. It was Ezhov, not Stalin and the PB, that set
"quotas" for arrests and executions. Stalin and the PB had called for
"limits."

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact has been demonized by the anticommunists and crypto-Nazis in
Eastern Europe, aided by their allies elsewhere. But they have it completely wrong.

Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia were colonial possessions of Poland, obtained by
conquest from Soviet Russia in 1921 and then "settled" by Polish
"settlers" (osadniki), largely former military officers, in order to
"Polonize" them.

Ukrainians and Belorussians were a majority in these areas but Poland progressively took
away their rights to use of their languages, to schooling in those languages, to
government employment, and in general discriminated against them in many ways.

The large Jewish population of these areas was similarly subject to official
discrimination.

Poland added to this imperialist conquest when it took the Teszczin area way from
Czechoslovakia at the time of the Munich sell-out in 1938.

Finally (for now): The Soviets did not send in the Red Army until September 17, 1939,
after the Germans had informed them that, in their view, Poland as a state no longer
existed. This meant that Germany would not abide by the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact division
of spheres of influence. The Germans officially warned the Soviets that "new
states" - i.e., a pro-Nazi Ukrainian Nationalist state - would arise in W. Ukraine
and W. Belorussia if the Red Army did not come in.

he Germans were, in fact, correct - Poland as a state had ceased to exist when its
government, along with its military leadership, interned itself in Rumania on September 17
1939.

I have a long article, with 17 or 18 web pages of evidence, on this question at

http://www.tinyurl.com/furr-mlg09

The article is the first link on the left. All the other pages are evidence.

Note that Winston Churchill agreed with the Soviet incursion into what had formerly
been Eastern Poland.

The Germans almost seized Moscow and Leningrad as it was! If the USSR had not entered
former Eastern Poland, the Wehrmacht would have started its invasion much closer to the
Soviet heartland than it did and most likely captured Leningrad and Moscow.

To sum up:

The "Danilov volumes" prove nothing, though they are useful as any collection
of documents is useful;

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was not only salutary, but essential. Far from a crime or an
"invasion", the USSR acted as any state would have done in entering Western
Poland to keep the Wehrmacht as far as possible from its pre-1939 borders.

Collectivization was a success in ending the endless cycle of famines and in permitting
industrialization.

Collectivization did not cause the famine. No doubt the famine would have been less
severe if it had not coincided with collectivization. But that was almost sure to happen
anyway. The main thing is: This famine was the LAST famine.

The "Terror" - really, the Ezhovshchina - of 1937-1938 was the result of
Ezhov's conspiracy, along with that of some of the First Secretaries. Of course it was
horrible. But Stalin and the PB did not undertake it.

I should mention here that, in my Russian-only book (with my Moscow colleague Vladimir
Bobrov) I have an essay in which I show that Bukharin knew about Ezhov's conspiracy but
did not mention it in his interrogations or at trial. If Bukharin, Rykov, et al. had done
this, Ezhov could have been stopped and the mass murders either avoided or curtailed.
Bukharin's, and the Right's, responsibility for Ezhov's mass murders has not been pointed
out elsewhere.

When you read the MS of my Kirov book you will note that we have much evidence that the
conspiracies alleged in the three public Moscow Trials, plus the Tukhachevsky trial, did
exist - they were not at all "fabrications" by Stalin or anyone else.

As for your own contribution, I must be honest: I find it to be excellent!

You have certainly made arguments that I have not encountered elsewhere, and have not
thought of myself.

I would like to translate it into English and circulate it - that is, if you agree.

Also, do you have a version in Italian? I would like to send it to some friends in
Italy.

I like very much your response about the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact: "s'il y a course
au
compromis avec Hitler, Staline l'a perdue". Imagine anyone objecting to the Soviets
signing the M-R Pact in the face of Munich!

I would only add that the M-R Pact was not only defensible - it was essential, and
quite probably saved the USSR, and thereby all of us, from defeat in the war.

That said, there are a few points where I would disagree with you somewhat. They all
boil down to this: In my view, you cede too much to Werth, every single one of whose
claims is false.

Trotsky, for example. All the evidence we now possess points to Trotsky's having been
guilty of all the charges made against him in the Moscow Trials. This includes a good deal
of evidence from the Trotsky Archives at Harvard and at the Hoover Institution, as
discovered by Pierre Broué, a famous Trotskyist.

I would disagree that collectivization was "La période la plus horrible est celle
de la collectivisation de l'agriculture." As I stated above, in my view it was a
triumph.

Naturally the Bolsheviks made many errors in carrying it out. They were the first; it
had never been done. Pioneers always make errors; in fact it is impossible to be an
innovator without making errors.

The Chinese and North Vietnamese learned from these errors, and carried out
collectivization in different ways. The end result was, I think, fewer casualties. But
they had the Soviet example to learn from.

For "most horrible" I'd vote for the Ezhovshchina - which, as I have argued
above, Werth and all the other anticommunists falsify. Werth has absolutely no evidence
that it was an attempt at "nettoyage prophylactique" - this is just verbiage. It
was a disaster, of course, but a disaster for which Bukharin, so sacred to the
anticommunists and to Khrushchev in his day, bears significant responsibility.

I do not agree that "the Stalin period" was a "horror". I think you
do not really agree either.

But of course it was tragic, in that errors were made that led to socialism being
sidetracked, and then betrayed altogether. It led to Khrushchev - and Khrushchev and his
ilk were nourished during the Stalin period. Therefore, obviously, reactionary
developments were taking place. We need to study to discover what they were.

But in sum, I think your essay is excellent! I know that Werth will not accept a word
of it.

So much the worse for him. His father, Alexander Werth, was an honest observer, in my
estimation, and his books are well worth reading today, all of them. Nicolas Werth's are
what I call "propaganda with footnotes."